hundred and sixty different theses, upon the most abstruse theology;-and to defend and maintain them in such sort, as to cramp and dumb-found his opponents.

-What is that, cried my father, to what is told us of Alphonsus Tostatus, who, almost in his nurse's arms, learned all the sciences and liberal arts, without being taught any one of them?-What shall we say of the great Peireskius ?- -That's the very man, cried my uncle Toby, I once told you of, brother Shandy, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning from Paris to Scheveling, and from Scheveling back again, merely to see Stevinus's flying chariot.-He was a very great man! added my uncle Toby (meaning Stevinus).He was so, brother Toby, said my father (meaning Peireskius);—and had multiplied his ideas so fast, and increased his knowledge to such a prodigious stock, that if we may give credit to an anecdote concerning him, which we cannot withhold here, without shaking the authority of all anecdotes whatever,at seven years of age, his father committed entirely to his care the education of his younger brother, a boy of five years old, with the sole management of all his concerns. Was the father as wise as the son? quoth my uncle Toby.--I should think not, said Yorick.- But what are these, continued my father(breaking out in a kind of enthusiasm)-what are these, to those prodigies of childhood in Grotius, Scioppius, Heinsius, Politian, Pascal, Joseph Scaliger, Ferdinand de Cordoué, and others;- -some of whom left off their substantial forms at nine years old, or sooner, and went on reasoning without them ;-others went through their classics at seven ;-wrote tragedies at eight. Ferdinand de Cordoué, was so wise at nine, -'twas thought the devil was in him ;-and at Venice gave such proofs of his knowledge and goodness, that the monks imagined he was Antichrist, or nothing. Others were masters of fourteen languages at ten; -finished the course of their rhetoric, poetry, logic,

and ethics, at eleven;-put forth their commentaries upon Servius and Martianus Capella at twelve; and, at thirteen, received their degrees in philosophy, laws, and divinity. But you forget the great Lipsius, quoth Yorick, who composed a work 1 the day he was born. -They should have wiped it up, said my uncle. Toby, and said no more about it.

CHAPTER CLXIV.

When the cataplasm was ready, a scruple of decorum had unseasonably rose up in Susannah's conscience about holding the candle whilst Slop tied it on: Slop had not treated Susannah's distemper with anodynes ;-and so a quarrel had ensued betwixt them.

-O! O!-said Slop, casting a glance of undue freedom in Susannah's face, as she declined the office; -then, I think I know you, madam.- -You know

me, sir! cried Susannah, fastidiously, and with a toss of her head, levelled, evidently, not at his profession, but at the doctor himself;-you know me! cried Susannah again.Doctor Slop clapped his finger and his thumb instantly upon his nostrils ;- -Susannah's

spleen was ready to burst at it; 'Tis false, said Susannah.- -Come, come, Mrs. Modesty, said Slop, not a little elated with the success of his last thrust ;

if

you won't hold the candle and look,—you may hold it and shut your eyes.-That's one of your Popish

1 Nous aurions quelque intérêt, says Baillet, de montrer qu'il n'a rien de ridicule s'il étoit véritable, au moins dans le sens énigmatique que Nicius Erythræus a tâché de lui donner. Cet auteur dit que pour comprendre comme Lipse, il a pû composer un ouvrage le premier jour de sa vie, il faut s'imaginer, que ce premier jour n'est pas celui de sa naissance charnelle, mais celui au quel il a commencé d'user de la raison; il veut que c'ait été à l'âge de neuf ans; et il nous veut persuader que ce fut en cet àge, que Lipse fit un poëme.-Le tour est ingénieux, &c. &c.